
Boston Celtics gear up for a lightning-fast season. Will their new high-octane style lead to early stumbles or instant success? John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal breaks down the Celtics' dramatic shift to a faster, more physical game plan. He analyzes Jaylen Brown's recent comments on team chemistry and timing challenges. The discussion covers the impact on big men, potential early-season struggles, and how "Mazzulla Ball" is evolving. Karalis predicts a top-5 finish in pace for the Celtics, a stark contrast to last year's bottom-dwelling tempo. Tune in for insider insights on how the Celtics' new strategy could reshape their path to NBA glory.
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John Corrales
Foreign every day.
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John Corrales
Morning Zoe. Got donuts.
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John Corrales
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John Corrales
Jaylen Brown reveals the one thing that's kind of been holding the Celtics back so far. He's actually revealing a lot on Twitch lately and we need to change the narrative about Missoula Ball right now on the Lockdown Celtics podcast. Huh? Be ever ready. It's the seas. Who else could it be? What they gonna say now screaming like JT Corralics recap the madness every game, every practice prime time Depp and D White on the sideline. Reigning J How it started Raising ban is how we finish Locked on Celtics pod home of the winners, baby. Hey there. Welcome back to the Lockdown Celtics podcast right here on the Lockdown Podcast network where it is your team every day. Your team is the Boston Celtics and I Talk about them every Monday through Friday. Bonus podcasts when they play on weekends, Friday nights, Saturday nights. I'll give you a little something to listen to after those games, so make sure to subscribe. The show is always free. It's available Everywhere. It's on YouTube. Get into the comment section. Become an everydayer. Join me every day of the week. Like I said, it's free 30 minutes or so. So perfect for your ride to work, your morning jog, your morning dog walk, the shower, and getting ready for work. It's all right there. I'm John Corrales, beat writer for Boston Sports Journal. I've written a couple books about the team. I've been doing a version of this job for about 20 years, so hopefully I'm here to entertain and inform you. And today I'll be doing it with the following three topics. Later on, we'll get into Missoula Ball. The. The third segment. I just, I've talked about this, but it keeps coming up. So I just gonna keep railing on what Missoula Ball quote unquote actually is. We'll get into Jalen Brown.
Jalen Brown
He.
John Corrales
His revelations on Twitch have become, I guess, a must watch if you're into watching a guy talk for four hours on Twitch. He's. He's saying some stuff. Luckily, I'll just say this. There are people to kind of distill it down to the important parts. This is. I'm gonna do my. The thing I liked to do in college. Someone else do all the listening and break it down for me, and then I'll take the important parts and, and I'll pay attention to that. So, but let's start with the. The one thing that's been holding the Celtics back in this first couple of weeks of training camp or weekend, whatever it is. Uh, so the Celtics have stated they want to play fast, they want to play physical. It is a, you know, a different style. They're going to play so much more uptempo. Everybody comes out and talks to us at the RBAC center and it's like, oh my God, I'm so tired. Oh my God. We've been going for so long and everybody's just gassed. I mean, we've been going. They don't call any fouls, they didn't do anything. And it's. I'm like, that's great. So Jalen spoke at practice on was it Monday? And I asked them and I normally would play the question. You're going to hear Jalen talk but couldn't get through the background Noise on that. I asked him, I said, look, you're playing faster. You're playing faster than the Celtics have played probably since, you know, the, the Tommy Hindson as coach days in the 70s, like, they want to play super fast up tempo. It's a new thing and you got new players. The timing has to be off, and that's not easy to get. And he agreed. Here's what he had to say.
Jalen Brown
I think that's the biggest. I wouldn't say gap, but that's the biggest thing that the timing of everything, kind of like what we've seen before, the timing is almost seamless. Like, guys know where to be, guys know when to set a screen, guys know when to get out. It's. We're. We're working through some of those kinks in our timing. And I think that's the biggest difference of like, how you can determine chemistry. When you see a team has a great chemistry to have great timing is a big part of it. So we really got to get that down and we've really been working on it. But some of that more experienced players, they have that because they know they played in the league for a long time. So establishing that timing is something that we really trying to speed up the learning curve and develop. But we've been putting in our work. But you know, we got some more work to do for sure that films.
John Corrales
That reps has had getting against a.
Jalen Brown
Live defense that can, you know, it's everything. It's film. It's for sure. I want us to be the smartest team out there, the more studious team out there. Like we watch in film, like, we got to make sure the comprehension level is there. We got to make sure everybody knows what coverages, what reads that we need to be in actively every day. We're emphasizing that because we got to be a smart team because we don't have a choice. And on top of that, it's the reps. So being able to go hard, make it game like and being able to see and determine what's the right thing to do right here and next. So it's a little bit of everything. And we've been trying to expedite that learning process, but it's going to take some time.
John Corrales
This is the. The hardest part here and why I think even though I talked recently about the Celtics having, you know, the potential to overachieve this season, I think what might end up happening considering this part of it is we might see the Celtics start slow and finish stronger because this timing thing is. Is really important. And it's a very difficult thing to accomplish in a short amount of time because think of it as, you know, forget basketball for a second. Just think of it as choreography. If you like Dancing with the Stars is on. Well, okay, so I only know that because my wife watches it. That's all I'll admit to. But okay, two people can learn a dance, a slow dance, and you learn the steps. It's a few steps. You repeat them, you perfect it and you can figure it out. Now you go to America's Got Talent and you've got those big groups with 30 people dancing and flipping and doing all that. So that's hard to do. That takes a lot longer to learn where you're supposed to be, how you're supposed to angle yourself, where you're supposed to be and when. And. And where you're supposed to look in the position. Oh, it's so difficult. And you can't just take a big troop like that and say, okay, here's, you know, in terms of, you know, basketball, there's six new players. Is, you know, when you factor in the two way guys, it's like a third of the team a little bit more than that. You can't take 10, 11, you know, of those dancers and say, okay, Here's a new 10 people figure this out in three weeks. That's. It's hard to do. It's just, you're not going to be in the right spot. People are going to be out of position. It's not going to look good. So that first part of the Celtic schedule where I've been like, kind of going back and forth, is it going to be a big losing streak to start? Is it going to be a, A thing where, you know, maybe you win a couple of games? It's. I, I still think it might be a tough start to the season. Even though, you know, the Philly game, it looks like Joel Embiid, I don't know if Joel Embiid's gonna play. I don't know what they're gonna do in Philly. I have no clue. But, okay, maybe you win a couple of these games. But I think even if you're optimistic, even if you're one of the people that's been getting on me in the comments and saying, where's your faith? Where's your optimism? There's. I think there's optimism there that the Celtics will ultimately end up being a decent team. But I gotta caution everybody to, it's not gonna look great in the beginning. And I Don't know what that's gonna end up looking. I mean, looking like maybe. Maybe they come together faster. But listen, listen to the words that Jalen just said. Go back and replay it. He's admitting this has been the tough part because everybody on the team's getting used to playing a different style. And I'm going to get this in, you know, the Missoula ball stuff in the se. In the third segment. This is all part of it. Everybody on the team is getting used to playing differently. Everybody on the team is figuring out something new. So even the guys like Jalen and Derek and Peyton and Sam, guys who have been here before, Chris Boucher, who's been around the league before, these guys are still now learning. They're. They're being inundated with a new kind of philosophy. Then you, you throw in six new players, they're being inundated with new attitudes, new motivations, new nuance, new little things about. Look, Luca Garza is not Al Horford. He's not Christoph Sporzingis, he's not Luke Cornette. And some, in some ways, he might be better than, you know, one aspect of something. It might be worse. You don't know what, what that is ultimately, but it's different. He moves differently. How he sets. His picks are different. And look, the Celtics bigs are going to be setting a ton of picks. A ton of picks. This is, I'm trying to explain this to you in a way that maybe, you know, I know it's difficult to understand sometimes that, you know, it's not, it's not just bad. It's. It's. The faster you play, the more decisions you have to make. And the, you know, it's not just going to be coming down and be like, they got Jalen. Oh, they got Derek, they got Anthony Simons. So they got all these. They've got some guys here that are. It's. But it's more than that. It's. How do you create those advantages, the two on ones that Joe Missoula keeps talking about? You still have to create advantages because NBA defenses are the most advanced NBA defenses that we've ever seen. They're switching a ton. There's switching 1 through 3, 1 through 4, 1 through 5. You throw in some zone, you take advantages of some rules, you, you can get a little more. More handsy. Now there's all these different things, the nuance of all the NBA defense. And you say, okay, now we're doing this with a whole lot more Namish K and he's going to have to sit some time. Chris Boucher, how do you set your picks? How you know, how do you get used to these guys? How do you move? What's your gate, what's your timing? You know how different guys just move a little hop to a step? Xavier Tillman, Luca Garza, just different things and guys have to process things faster. Those bigs are going to be super, super important. The timing is going to be critical. I'm going to continue this with the bigs, a focus on the bigs. Then we'll get to Jaylen Brown on Twitch and what he's been saying about this team unfiltered through, through the Internet. It's all coming up next. Today's show is brought to you Today's show is brought to you by FanDuel. If you're new to FanDuel, all you got to do is place a five dollar bet and if you win, you get 300 in bonus bets. So go ahead, pick a bet. 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John Corrales
Thank you for making Lockdown Celtics your first listen Every day, make sure you're checking out Lockdown Fantasy Basketball with Josh Lloyd. He is the absolute goat when it comes to fantasy basketball. So check him out. He's going to give you daily tips. He's going to help you win your league, all while making making you a smarter NBA fan. Check out Lockdown Fantasy basketball. It's on YouTube. It's wherever you found this podcast, so check it out there. So as I was saying before the break, the, the speed at which the Celtics play, it's really going to challenge the bigs. It's going to, they're going to have to get up and down the floor, think about a big. You're going to protect the rim. You gotta, you know, a lot of these guys are gonna end up switching a bunch. So think about like a Chris Boucher who is coming in, going out to the perimeter, coming back to the, the, the paint, you know, sliding back and forth up to play the pick and roll, playing in that drop, turning around, box out, get the rebound outlet, then come down the floor and it's like, set a screen, turn around, set another screen. Oh, that action isn't going. I got to set this other screen. You have to be on the same page. This is why Jalen's talking about these guys being the smartest team in the league. You have to see the same thing at the same time and make the same decision. And everybody has to do that every play down the floor, right? That's the hard part. And they drill it over and over again. When you see this, this is what you do. So this is why when I asked them that follow up question, is it film, is it reps, is it live? Live play against the defense you haven't seen before. I know the answer is all three. Because you have to be in film, you have to show your bigs. I need you in this spot. I made this pass. I'm looking for you to be here to set A flare screen for me so I can go this way, stuff like that. So you look at it in film and the guys see it, they process it. Then you go out and you drill, you rep, you. You put that muscle memory in and you just do it over and over and over again. Oh, this. The ball went here. We don't see this. We don't see this thing developing now. This is what we do. Boom, boom, boom. It's impossible. It's impossible. Two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, five week. Impossible to get it right right away. It's going to be a very difficult thing for the Celtics to get. It's not to say that they can't get it. They will, because they seem to be working very hard towards it. But if you're expecting seamless chemistry on day one and the Celtics to start the season on a five game winning streak, who knows? Maybe they will, but I doubt it because the way they want to play some of those things, especially when you need the execution. Fourth quarter, it's just going to be a little tough. Guys aren't going to be there. The ball's going to get thrown away. There's going to be some key turnovers that may not be there in December, January or February, but they'll be there in October, November, you know, and. And slowly things will go away. That's going to be the trajectory for this team, that they will figure this stuff out. Joe will figure out lineups. Part of it also is like, we've seen the film, we've drilled, it looks good in drills. Now here come the Memphis Grizzlies, and they're going to be like, oh, wait a second. That's not. That's not the defense that we saw. We've been seeing the defense we've been drilling against, you know, and. And so you see a wrinkle and it throws you off because you're like, you can get very mechanical. Oh, I go here. I go here. I go here. And then the Grizzlies come along or the Raptors come along and you're like, whoa, whoa, hey, look, defense. You're supposed to be playing along with us, man. You got to let me get to my spots here. That's where the reading comes in. That practical. That practical application. Just like a boxer, you can. You can run and you hit the bags and go through a sparring and, you know, stop the sessions and explain and explain. Then you get into an actual fight and somebody punches you in the mouth. It's the Mike Tyson line. Everybody's got a plan. Until you get punched in the mouth. So how fast the Celtics figure all of that out will explain or will. Will. Will show us how quickly the Celtics can get to any level of overachieving. That. That's. That's the number one thing. If the Celtics are going to overachieve, it's going to look like, oh, my God, these guys are all playing on a string. They're all on the same page now. You could have all the faith in the world that they're going to get there, but just don't expect it on day one. They could finish. They might be like the most efficient team in the league in March and April, you know, like, that could be. I'm not predicting that, but you can go from. You can see. I wouldn't be surprised if you saw, like, November Celtics efficiency stats. And you look at the stats, you're like, oh, these are. These are gross. And then in February, March, April, you go, oh, okay, these. These numbers really turned around. You do a side by side, like, oh, the progression has come along. So that. That's going to be, I think, what we see. And you listen to Jalen on Twitch, and, you know, he's talking about a lot of these things. He, he. My favorite line is, I don't play for a basketball team. I play for a track team. And that's what he wanted, right? He says, that's what I wanted. He talks about the practices being rough and, and going through no fouls and all of that stuff, and that's going to help them play through some of the stuff that they're going to experience, and that'll be great. But the. The track team stuff, that's. That's all new. And so Jalen talks about, this is the hardest camp I've been through. Cassell talks about this is the hardest camp I've seen in 34 years or however long he's been in the league. Joe Mazzullo likes to throw some cold water on that and just say, like, look, it's recency bias. And everybody's going to say that, but that's not necessarily the case. But even so, these guys are going through, like, no one is denying that these guys are playing super fast. Josh Minot has said multiple times, I think we're going to be the fastest team in the league. We'll see about that. But that's the goal. That's where they're going with it. They're going to have to figure some stuff out in that regard. These guys are getting tired. You can't play 82 games and have like Jalen, historically, he's going to. He's going to miss some time. He generally misses some time. So where's the depth going to be? And hopefully he doesn't, but he generally misses some time. And you know that. That's been how it's gone over his career. And it's. It might just be like 10, 12 games, but he. If that happens early, then things are going to get really ugly fast. You know, if he tweaks a hammy or sprains an ankle or a thumb or whatever, that. That's going to be a more of a problem. Because I think early they're going to need to rely on Jalen and his, you know, his. His explosiveness to kind of carry. I think, I think the. The November, December, early December, you know, basketball for the Celtics is going to look like a lot breakdowns that Jalen's gonna have to bail him out of, breakdowns that, that Derek's gonna have to bail him out of, breakdowns that, you know, Pritchard's gonna have to bail him out of. Those types of things are going to show up from time to time and, and it may not be how the Celtics ultimately want to play, but early on they're going to need these guys. And if any of those guys, not just Jalen, but Jalen's the most important guy early on, especially if he goes down because of, you know, the workload or, you know, look back to backs. Early back to backs might be tough. You know, Jalen's talking about all of this, the. The speed and everybody's so tired and like the early back to backs. It's going to be a lot to ask these guys. I think the medical staff, the training staff is going to be like, look, these guys are tired. You need to dip into some of this depth. Which is going to mean more minutes for Garza and Minot and Shireman and guys who are unproven or learning that that's all difficult. So when you watch Jalen on Twitch and he's talking about all this stuff, it. I think. I think we're just kind of being, you know, it's informative. It's letting us know that they're first of all working really hard, second of all, really tired. And, and they're gonna, you know, their body's gonna have to catch up to the workload, which they might. They might do early in this. They're going to catch up to that. But like the early part of the season, you have to rely on that. Depth, that, that's just a fact. You're just gonna have to rely on that depth. And there's a lot of new players and that might make the early part of the season a little bit of a struggle. And moving forward, it's just, they'll, they'll get there. They'll get there. The Missoula Ball. This is something I just keep hearing it on podcasts and people keep talking about it. The Missoula Ball thing, I think we're actually going to start seeing this year what Missoula Ball, really, truly, actually, honestly is. I'll talk about that when I come back. Today's show is brought to you by Monarch Money. Get control of your finances. 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Home Chef / Advertisement Voice
It's that time of year. The days are getting shorter and a little crisper and I find myself craving comforting home cooked meals. Home Chef makes it easy with their oven ready recipes and hearty desserts that hit the spot without me having to stress over what's for dinner. Home Chef is rated number one by users of other meal kits for quality, convenience, value, taste and recipe ease. And for a limited time Home Chef is offering our listeners 50% off and free shipping for your first box, plus free dessert for life. Go to Home Chef.com LockedOn Home Chef.com LockedOn must be an active subscriber to receive free dessert.
John Corrales
Thank you for making Lockdown Celtics your first listen every day. Go check out Locked on NBA Locked on NBA Game Night is in the regular Locked NBA podcast, both on the same feed, both free. Locked on Game night is Locked on NBA game night is seven days a week. It is once these games now are underway here, it's a full recap of all the games getting you caught up on the entire NBA. So get that and then the big stories debate style in the afternoons. Unlocked on NBA so Missoula Ball I think this people latch on and I know why. Because first impressions are are what people think. No matter if you have a bad first impression, man, it's so hard to get over that. That's why so many people put pressure on themselves to make that good first impression. Because the first thing you hear is the first thing you believe and the first thing you see is the first thing you believe. And so your first impression of a person, a player, a coach, that's going to be what you think. Now, Joe Missoula, oh, he loves a three pointer, he does love three pointers, but he loves good shots. He loves efficient basketball. He loves the maximizing possessions. But the Celtics have had, as I've said, multiple good to great three point shooters. They've had good two great three point shooters on the floor almost at all times. Okay? So when you look at what this team has been, Jalen, Jason, Derek on the perimeter, the ability to kick it out to Al Horford, Christops, Porzingis, Drew Holiday on the perimeter, those guys collapsing defenses, kicking it out. Any one of those guys gets the touch in the middle of the paint, you kick it out to any one of those guys behind the three point line with a good look. Any one of those guys can knock it down, some with better regularity than others. But all of those guys, if you get an open, clean look, you can say, I expect that guy to knock down open, clean looks. And that's not what this team is going to be this year. And we know that the past two years the Celtics kind of had embarrassment of riches. This season we're going to start seeing, I think, what we can truly call something closer to, quote unquote, Missoula Ball. And we call it Missoula ball because first of all, it's a fun thing to call it. But secondly, it's a, you know, people like to just say that it's, it's the three point heavy offense. You hurl up 50 plus three pointers. That's Joe Missoula, that, that's Missoula ball. But that's, it's just such a disingenuous, it just lacks so much, so much context of why. I cannot believe that people are just not seeing why they shot so many three pointers because so many of those shots were open. They were good looks all season long and they did. They definitely took some bad ones for sure. And a couple of times they got, they fell in love. In certain games they fell in love with it, but mostly that they had the personnel and this year they don't. This year they have to play differently. People are going to be surprised by what they see. I've been saying this here on this podcast for a while and I'm going to keep on saying it. The more I hear it, the more I'm going to say it. This is not going to be the, the Missoula, the quote, unquote, Missoula ball that you've seen over the past couple of seasons. This is going to be a faster style of play with a lot more cutting and passing and, you know, screening like crazy and creating as many different advantages as you can. And sometimes that's going to lead to mid range jumpers, sometimes that's going to lead towards layups. And sure, they're going to shoot threes, they're going to shoot plenty of three pointers. There's no doubt they're going to still shoot plenty of three pointers, but they're going to end up shooting maybe 1012 fewer three pointers per game just because they don't have the guys. Al Horford hoisted three pointers and they were mostly good looks. Porzingis hoisted three pointers, they're mostly good looks. That's. That, that's gone. Keita's not going to do that. Boucher will do some, but Garza, Garza will do some. Tillman couple. Not at the same rate. Who's going to be shooting all of these? You, you're not going to get that same. Just come down and fire, fire, fire. It's going to be a little bit different. So I don't know, I just keep seeing it, I keep hearing it. And so I'm going to keep railing against it because that's, it's not what, it's not what the Celtics is going to be this year. Everything I've Seen everything I've heard. These guys are running like crazy. They're going to be so up tempo. Their pace, I think can, can be, you know, five, six, seven more shots per 48 minutes. They're going to be up, I think, in the top, top 10 in pace this year. Maybe, maybe top five versus bottom like 29th last year. I'm telling you, if I'm, I, I can't, I'm sure I can't bet on this on Fanduel, but if I could put five bucks on something, the Celtics being a top five pace team, I'd buy that. I think that's what the Celtics are trying to be and that would be that alone. Forget the win total, forget the whatever, you know, measure you have of a coach. If they finish this season top five in pace, that should be enough to get people to shut up about what Joe Missoula has been and to understand that he's, he's been coaching them. The way the team is constructed and the way the team is constructed this year is going to be something different. So that's what we should expect. All right, we'll be back tomorrow. I'll have Tom Westerholm on. We'll talk, we'll get a little look ahead to the first preseason game, then Wednesday preseason basketball. So I will do a post game podcast which will obviously be much later in the night, but I will be here for you every post game. So make sure you subscribe. The show is going to be available everywhere. It's free. It's available Monday through Friday. Again, bonus podcast on the weekend. It's on YouTube. 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Host: John Karalis
Date: October 7, 2025
John Karalis dives deep into the current state of the Boston Celtics during training camp, focusing on the team's biggest early-season challenge: chemistry and timing—particularly as they look to overhaul their style of play to a much faster, more physically demanding system. The episode weaves together player revelations (notably from Jalen Brown's candid Twitch streams), the realities of "Missoula Ball," and why fans should temper early season expectations for seamless performance. The analysis is both inside-the-locker-room real and actionable for fans wanting the truth about where the Celtics stand.
Training Camp Focus: The team is committed to ramping up pace and playing with relentless physicality. Almost every player and coach interviewed is "gassed" from the intensity.
Jalen Brown’s Perspective: Timing and chemistry are the most formidable hurdles as the team tries to integrate new players and a new play style at full speed.
Choreography Analogy (06:44):
John compares learning this up-tempo system to mastering a complicated group dance—adding several new members makes timing and positioning exponentially harder to achieve in a short camp.
Inevitable Growing Pains:
Even seasoned players like Jalen, Derrick White, and others are forced to unlearn old habits and adapt quickly. Introducing six new players complicates matters further.
Chemistry isn't Instant:
The Celtics' struggles aren’t about individual talent but synchronizing as a group in Joe Mazzulla’s higher-paced system. Early turnovers, missed assignments, and breakdowns are expected.
Bigs Under Pressure:
The new style especially stresses the big men (Boucher, Garza, Tillman, etc.), who must sprint the floor, screen multiple times per possession, read actions, and switch often—an enormous cognitive and physical load.
Jalen Brown on the Team’s Key Issue (05:15):
“The timing is almost seamless... We’re working through some of those kinks in our timing. ...Establishing that timing is something that we really trying to speed up the learning curve and develop.”
Jalen Brown’s View on Preparation (06:01):
“We got to make sure the comprehension level is there. ...We got to make sure everybody knows what coverages, what reads... We got to be a smart team because we don’t have a choice.”
John Karalis, On the Challenge Facing Bigs (14:45):
“You have to be on the same page. This is why Jalen’s talking about these guys being the smartest team in the league. You have to see the same thing at the same time and make the same decision.”
Jalen Brown’s “Track Team” Joke (22:20):
"I don’t play for a basketball team. I play for a track team. And that’s what I wanted."
Karalis on “Missoula Ball” Stereotypes (26:32):
“It’s not going to be the, the Missoula, the quote, unquote, Missoula ball that you’ve seen over the past couple of seasons.”
This summary covers all relevant discussion points and highlights, preserving the original tone and expert commentary from John Karalis. For Celtics fans wanting a clear-eyed update, it’s a blueprint for what to expect—and why the process, not perfection, is the name of the game to start the 2025 season.